Sept.28~ DOUG STOIBER

Terrific news, poetry fans! Doug Stoiber is back with more new poetry for SHINE. Please enjoy "Language as a Roadmap of Culture," "Medicine Man," and "Anti-Ode To a Highway Jackass." Thanks, Doug, for sharing your work with us!

Language as a Roadmap of Culture

It started typically enough, the two of us in text
She’s all like, where u been all day, or words to that effect
And I’m like, idk just hangin out with Jane and Drew
And she’s all wtf with Jane? what she want with u

So I go chill out lol just playin call of duty
And she’s like omg she prolly showin off her booty
Then I’m like dude ur trippin why u hafta be so salty
Then one of us was like … something (but my memory is faulty)

So I go hit me up whenevs – then added – brb
And she’s like, all dramatic, texts karma mf to me
She has her style and this I know – I never will forget her
It’s like, I like her; but I like, really like Janey better

Medicine Man

Awakened (hungry dogs or brilliant sun or bursting bladder)
These irksome tocsins dragging me from sleep and coverlet,
Once vertical and groggy, commence my morning habitude
Before the bathroom mirror, the daily polypharmacy commences

Multimineral multivitamin, one large lozenge bolsters bone health
Nerve and muscle vigor, and fills the dietary gaps
That beer and freezer pizza must create
A morning bullet aimed at evening’s dissolution

Gelatinous capsule next to swallow, eye health front and center,
To slow the creeping damage wrought by macular degeneration
Aging and its ruinous bend, I pray the pill to halt in place
That total blindness wait until I wish to see no more

Followed by my “crazy pill”
Venlafaxine heeds the need to moderate my deep depression
And unease. It stops the brain from reabsorbing serotonin
Balancing the dopamine at work inside my head

I gulp the angiotensin II receptor blocker next
It soothes and widens arteries and veins that strain my heart
High blood pressure, attendant to my aging stiffened vessels
Perchance to live a longer life, my heart relieved of stress

Metoprolol, a beta blocker, down the hatch it goes
It partners with the previous pill to slow my racing heart
Relax, my sprinting heart, don’t work so hard!
Hurry not to reach life’s final straining beat!

An empty stomach is required for the physic next in order
Synthetic thyroid hormone to repair mysterious gland
Joins the beta blocker to rein in my tripping heart rate
Teamwork scheme, when one pill will not satisfy my need

Morning’s medication menu, on its way to work
To stretch my life much longer than it would
Without the medicines my doctor recommends
Live forever! Maybe?

Ah, yes the beer and pizza diet!
That, too, requires a nightly dose of statin magic
Triglycerides and LDL (not listed on the pizza box?)
Are battered down to balance my cholesterols

One more before my slumbers, I swallow with delight
Quetiapine fumarate—it calms me through the night
While regulating serotonin/dopamine activity
Good night, Depression! Pleasant sleep and dreams, Anxiety!

Anti-Ode To a Highway Jackass

​Get out of the left lane, you slug!
With your pastel VW Bug
The left lane’s for passing
That’s why I’m harassing
By hugging your bumper so snug
​
Your turn’s not for many a mile
Yet you hog the left lane all the while
Faster drivers expect
To blow past your Insect
But we’re lined up behind, single file

Take a hint, you oblivious blight!
Make a signal and ease to your right
Let us all go on by
Or by God I will fry
Both your eyeballs with high beams on BRIGHT!

It’s no use; you’re determined to linger
Where you are; you’re a real humdinger!
So you’ll see in your rearview
In a brilliant and clear view
My salute with the raised middle finger

Doug Stoiber is a poet and short story writer living in East Tennessee. Twenty of his short stories and forty of his poems have been published in magazines, journals and anthologies. His poem, "Nine Months Collage" was shortlisted for The Poetry Lighthouse Prize, 2026. “Whither Tinsel” was awarded 2nd runner up in Blue Crystal’s Winter Poetry, Short Story, & Photography Challenge.

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